I’m asking for renewed prayer for JT’s recent nausea and vomiting issues.  This morning he threw up a truckload right in the middle of his morning oral meds.  It got all over the IV line and his bedding and it shook him up.  But worst of all, he didn’t keep any of his important medicines down so he missed a whole 12-hour dose of them all.  I called one of the doctors to check in and she said that sometimes kids go through spurts when their stomach becomes upset.  However, I don’t think this is the issue at all.  He’s gagging and retching around that NG feeding tube at random times throughout the day and this all started about the same time that these new vomiting problems surfaced…

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Well, it’s much later now and the whole scene has changed.  JT continued to cough and gag around that tube this afternoon and into the early evening and he still wouldn’t eat anything.  I was certain that yellow tube was the problem and daydreamed about some day in the future when it would be gone, would no longer plague him. 

Then the accursed thing clotted off while I was administering his evening meds.  I worked with it for a half hour, using all the little nursing tricks we’ve learned, but it was completely clogged, gridlock.  When this happens, it’s shot.  So I called the hospital tonight and asked if I could pull it out myself.  The nurse gave me some simple instructions over the phone.  I then called Jodi to make sure she was okay with it, hung up the phone, told JT to count to three, and hauled that mother out. 

What a difference.  JT told me immediately how much better he felt.  Remember, he’s had that thing up his nose and down his throat into his stomach for almost two months now.  We left the pole and feeding pump and bags downstairs when we headed up for bed.  JT kept saying, “You’re free!  You’re free!”  We celebrated for a long time.  I invented The Freedom Dance and leaped around his room in the dark waving a flashlight and chanting while JT laughed uncontrollably.  It was one of the happiest moments of this whole journey.

While he was getting into his pajamas, we talked at length about tomorrow:  if he drinks the cans of PediaSure that he’s been getting through the tube (I called them “milkshakes”) and takes his oral meds through his mouth, he can stay free.  No home health nurse visiting, no holding him down, no new yellow nose tube.  He’s into it, really excited.  So please pray earnestly tonight and tomorrow morning that his body will allow him to do what his heart so much desires:  to stay free.  No vomiting, no swallowing problems.    

Right before sleep we always end the day with an old ritual from my camp counselor days called “Candlepower.”  I light a candle (he has an electric one now), sing two songs, and say a prayer and his verse over him.  Tonight, for the first time in months, JT sang every word of “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children” with me and clapped when we were done.  He hasn’t sung since the early fall.  I’m getting goose bumps just writing about it now.  I wish you all could have seen his beaming face with no feeding tube, no tape, no nothing, and also heard his little voice rising up in song – it was a glimpse of the kingdom, that place where “all things sad come untrue.”